Chasing Wishes (8 page)
Authors: Nadia Simonenko
This is the lunch counter for students who can't afford the other stands—my own personal lunch counter. I'm the only Fdivll
"Thank you, Mrs. Harris."
She bobs her enormous hair again as I duck back into the jostling crowd, jealously guarding my lunch as I fight my way toward the tables. It’s almost pathetic how much my body wants me to eat this crap. It's as if my stomach's forgotten what real food tastes like and thinks this stuff will actually be delicious.
A girl I don't even know sticks her foot out in front of me, but I'm way ahead of her. I cut to the left, dodge her attempt to trip me and make my way safely out of the crowd. Woodbridge isn't so much a school as an obstacle course to me. Every student is a potential hazard, someone looking for the opportunity to humiliate me. Even the ones who don't bother me... well, I can't trust them anymore. I never know who hates me and who is just indifferent to my presence here. I hate feeling as if I always have to be on guard, always ready for the next person to try to drive me out of their precious school. I knew it'd be like this if I went to the high school downtown, but out here? No way.
At least I’m adapting. Sort of.
"Now where to sit today..." I mutter to myself, scanning the cafeteria as I wander along the rows of tables. I don't know why I'm even bothering to look; I always end up sitting in the same place anyway. You always expect the popular clique to look down on you, but even the usual high school outcasts want nothing to do with me here. I'm in a class of my own at the very bottom of the food chain.
"Don't even
think
about sitting here, Nina," calls out a blond, pig-tailed girl from my Algebra class, her voice high and irritatingly nasal-sounding as she drops her backpack on the empty seat next to her. "We don't want you at our table."
The girls sitting at her table snicker, but I just roll my eyes and keep on walking. They're the last people on earth I'd want to sit with.
"Had no intention, Katie," I tell her as I pass. "I saw you sitting there yesterday and I wouldn't want to catch whatever diseases you left on the seat."
Katie's face turns bright red in embarrassment and fury as the table erupts in laughter. Good—let her have a taste of her own medicine for once. I’ll probably pay for it later, but it feels awesome to have the upper hand for now.
The next five tables are full, the sixth has a seat reserved for Sarah and the seventh spreads out to cover every seat when they see me coming. I knew this was coming but it still disappoints me all the same. A part of me still desperately wants to connect with someone here, even if it's never going to happen. Just like every day, I'll be sitting alone at the table in the corner.
...the table at which, for the first this year, someone else is currently sitting.
Isaac looks up and smiles at me, and I suddenly feel cold. I haven't talked to him since he helped me clean up in the hallway after Sarah dumped garbage on my head.
I’m briefly annoyed at his intrusion. As dumb as it sounds, the empty table in the corner is all I have. It's my place—my own little spot in a sea of unwelcoming students—and he's invading it. I'm not sure I trust him, either. One of these days, he's going to be just like the others—he's going to pull some terrible, cruel prank on me, and I can't even imagine what it'll be. Will he put something disgusting in my already unbelievably foul lunch? Maybe he'll just shove me around like some of the other guys do. That seems most likely.
Jesus, why am I even thinking like that?
I chastise myself. Isaac's never been anything but nice to me, and it's completely unfair of me to treat him like this. I cautiously sit down across from him, casting him a wary eye all the same.
"Nina, right?" he asks, smiling pleasantly at me. I nod.
"What was your name again? Was it Isaac?" I ask.
I already know his name but I feel like I have to say
something
. He nods in reply and gives me a smile so warm and inviting that my brain starts to do strange things to me. My hands don't seem to know where they belong anymore and I force myself to look away as my face flushes unexpectedly.
It feels strange talking to him. I should be ignoring him—treating him with disdain, the way everyone else treats me—but something about him almost compels me to like him. I don't want to have anything to do with the other students, but with Isaac... I just
can't
talk to him. It's as if my tongue just stops working when he's around. Why do I get this way around him?
"So," he starts again. "How's everything?"
My tongue still won't move, so instead I shrug and shove a forkful of stroganoff into my mouth. The noodles are so rubbery that I can barely chew them, but I'm almost thankful for the terrible food right now. It'll buy me enough time to figure out what to say.
"Have Sarah and her lap-dog of a boyfriend lightened up on you yet?" he asks, unfazed by my silence. He’s trying his best to be personable, but it's not exactly a fun subject for me.
"Not unless pushing my face into the water fountain counts as backing off," I finally answer, shaking my head.
Isaac frowns but doesn't say anything. Instead, he reaches into his brown paper bag and pulls out his lunch—a bologna sandwich and a bag of cashews. I haven't had bologna in God only knows how long, but right now, it looks so appetizing compared to my own lunch that it might as well be prime rib.
Isaac catches me looking at his food, shrugs awkwardly and mumbles, "It’s not real meat, but I like it."
My face turns red in panicked embarrassment as I realize I'm staring at his sandwich. I wasn't judging his food—I just... oh, I don't even know what I was doing. When you spend all your time either sitting alone or cowering before bullies, you sometimes forget how to be a normal person.
"Bologna isn’t real meat?" I blurt out, trying my best to come up with a good recovery. "My grandfather used to tell me stories of the majestic herds of bologna beasts thundering across the plains of Montana."
Great. Now I sound like a lunatic, too.
Isaac almost chokes on his sandwich and covers his mouth as he laughs, and I feel the tension in my shoulders relax a hair. It somehow makes me feel... almost proud that I made him laugh, as if it's some sort of accomplishment or something.
"I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Nina," he tells me once he can finally breathe again. "Everything you know about bologna is a lie."
Just as I’m about to continue our charade, a boy in a yellow polo shirt and khaki shorts stands up at the next table and shouts over to Isaac, interrupting me. "Hey, bro! We saved you a seat over here!"
Isaac ignores him, pulls out a bag of chocolate chip cookies and tosses one onto my tray.
"So anyway," he says, "we were just discussing the bologna beast and how—"
"Dude, if you feed a stray it’s gonna keep coming back for more," interrupts the asshole at the next table, and his band of likeminded idiots erupt into laughter and start coming up with even more delightful comments about me.
I pretend I can't hear them, but Isaac's jaw tightens and his green eyes grow dark and fierce as he listens to their slurs. He looks so angry that for a second, I'm afraid that he's going to start a scene right here in the cafeteria. If there's one thing I don't want, it's to be center of attention. All that does is get me into trouble.
I distract Isaac by handing him back his cookie, but he flicks it back to me with his fingers as if he's playing a game of air hockey. I try to push it back to his side of the table, but he shakes his head and presses it firmly down onto my tray.
"Come on – you can't just eat that little scoop of... whatever that shit is."
I lift the fork to my mouth and pretend to enjoy it. If I pretend for long enough that the stroganoff's awesome, eventually I'll like it. Normal people enjoy their food.
That's because normal people get to eat
real
food, though. The normal students have salads and sandwiches for lunch, and later tonight, they'll have amazing dinners like what I used to have when I was little—plates with bread rolls, gravy and potatoes, maybe even turkey. I'm the only girl in this entire school who has to decide between eating rubbery stroganoff now or saving it for dinner.
"Thanks, but I'm okay," I tell Isaac as I slide the cookie back across the table one last time, but I can already feel my resolve weakening. I haven't had chocolate in such a long time and it's so tempting compared to this awful crap on my plate.
He picks up the unclaimed cookie, drops it on my tray and then sits back with a smug grin on his face.
"Cookie's all yours," he says. "No givebacks."
He must be planning something. I'm certain that he's only pretending to like me... but if it's an act, he's putting a hell of a lot of effort into it.
I stubbornly ignore the cookie and instead poke at my floppy, unappetizing stroganoff. I’m not going to let him trick me so easily. I'm not going to let him hurt me the way everyone else tries—I'm not going to fall for those amazing green eyes or that little half-smile he's making. I'm not going to let the way he makes butterflies flutter around my stomach fool me into trusting him.
My stroganoff defies my efforts to spear it on my fork and taunts me from the plate as I stare angrily down at it. I'm not even in control of my own fucking lunch at this school.
The stroganoff is so unappetizing that it's almost not worth the effort to eat it. I know beggars can't be choosers, but there are times when I really wish we could be. My noodles win the staring contest, and when I back look up at Isaac, he's chewing contentedly on one of his cookies. A stray chocolate chip drops to the table in between us. God, it looks so delicious! I can't believe that I'm seriously considering eating his leftover cookie crumbs after he leaves.
"I didn't poison it if that's what you're wondering," he says, giving me a hurt look. "I was just trying to share my snack, Nina. Relax."
No, I'm not going to relax. Nobody sits with me at lunch. Nobody shares delicious looking, home-baked chocolate chip cookies. Khip width="Most of all,
nobody
is nice to me here.
Nobody except him. He's been nice to me since the day I arrived.
I suddenly feel guilty, but the guilt quickly gives way to suspicion again. I have every right to be wary of him after all the crap I've put up with in this school.
"Why are you doing this?" I blurt out, surprised by my own words. I totally didn’t mean to say that. Can’t I be in control of
anything
in my life?
He looks at me confused before answering. "Doing what?"
"Being... being nice to me," I answer, lowering my voice. "Nobody else is. They all treat me like I'm some kind of freak."
He rolls his eyes and a fiery anger bursts to life inside me.
"It's true!" I snap at him. "You saw what Sarah did to me in the hall. You heard those jackasses just now. Stupid shit like that happens all the time!"
I can’t believe he’s acting so...so nonchalant about it. How can he possible look that way at me?
"Are they seriously still messing with you after this long? You've been here for months now."
"Yes, and I can't do a damned thing about it. If I so much as put up a fuss, the teachers give
me
detention instead of them," I complain, the words streaming out now as I vent my frustrations at him. He sits silently, his green eyes locked to mine as he listens intently.
His gaze drifts off into the distance as I finish my rant, and I glance over my shoulder to see at Sarah and her boyfriend sitting at the far table. They're the king and queen of their own little domain, royalty among the clique of in-crowd sycophants. She bought both the salad and the pizza just as I expected, and she's barely touched either one.
"Okay, listen closely," Isaac tells me, suddenly leaning in close across the table. "Two things: first, keep your head down for now. This shit is going to stop soon, I promise. Just hang in there a little bit longer, okay?"
"How?" I ask incredulously, leaning back in my chair and putting some distance between us. The cold glint in his eye tells me he's serious, but I still don't trust him.
He shakes his head and doesn't answer, but his gaze softens and he winks at me as he gets up and packs his garbage into his bag.
"Seriously... how?" I press.
"Don't worry about it," he answers tersely, and then he adds, "I just... well, I know how to deal with people like them. Enjoy the rest of your lunch, Nina. See you tomorrow!"
"Wait!" I call after him as he heads for the door. "You said there were two things—what was the other?"
"Just that if you don't eat that goddamned cookie, I'm going to keep bringing you more until you do," he calls back, looking at me over his shoulder with a maniacal grin on his face, and then he disappears out into the hallway.
I stare back down at my tray—now empty except for the final chocolate chip cookie—and I finally give in. It tastes so good that I don't even realize that Isaac's planning to eat with me tomorrow too.
